With a third to a quarter of the American population overweight, obesity is rampant in contemporary society. At any given time, 40% of women and 24% of men are trying to lose weight and of these, 84% of women and 76-78% of men are dieting for this purpose. In the USA, losing weight has become a national obsession. Over 30 billion dollars are spent each year devising a plethora of new diets and methods for losing weight, none of which have been demonstrated to be effective over a long term (2 years).
Obesity is one of the most pervasive health problems in our society. The physical and psychological consequences have an impact on the afflicted in countless ways.
Almost all overweight people suffer derision and ridicule, but the worst prejudice is reserved for and directed towards obese women. We need only look at television commentators, politicians, and other public life to realize that overweight men do not experience the same degree of discrimination that obese women suffer.
States of hunger and satiety are known to be of crucial importance in the regulation of weight, and the perception of hunger is multivariate; environmental stimuli, psychological substrate, and internal physiology all contribute a share. Everyday experiences attest to the influence of ambient aromas on our appetites; we salivate at the smell of freshly baked cookies and feel nauseated at a whiff of sewer gas. When we are hungry, foods smell better and therefore, taste better. Conversely, olfactory ability wanes when we are satiated, lessening the hedonics of further ingestion.
Anatomic connections of the olfactory bulb to the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, the satiety center, authenticate these observations, as does the presence of cholecystokinin, a gastic satiety factor, as a neurotransmitter in the olfactory bulb. The fact that patients with acute anosmia often gain weight suggests that a failure of the olfactory-satiety feedback mechanism may be involved.
In a study to assess the effect on inhalation of certain aromas upon weight control, overweight subjects were given an inhaler containing a blend of odorants and instructed to inhale three times in each nostril whenever feeling hungry. New inhalers containing a new blend of odorants were supplied each month over a period of six months. Data indicated that those subjects with normal olfactory abilities and who inhaled certain odorants, used their inhalers frequently, ate two to four meals a day, felt bad about overeating but not about themselves, lost nearly five pounds or two percent of body weight per month over the six-month period.
This procedure has several drawbacks including the need and inconvenience of using an inhaler prior to a meal to inhale the odorants, the conspicuous nature of the inhaler, and the need to carry the inhaler around.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a more effective and convenient appetite suppression technique.